


you and i will walk together again

by nevereverever



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Animal Death, Friendship, Gen, I'm Sorry, Peaceful well loved animal death but still, Post-Canon, Sad Ending, Short One Shot, Trinket is the Best Bear, Unconditional Love, Vox Machina Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:47:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25174834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nevereverever/pseuds/nevereverever
Summary: It ends on a cool spring morning. It ends at a bench in a familiar wood, lying together.But it began 23 years prior when Vex'ahlia found herself surrounded by dead men and dead animals and a very scared bear cub.They have a happy story. Every story ends sometime.
Relationships: Trinket & Vex'ahlia (Critical Role), Vax'ildan & Vex'ahlia (Critical Role)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 46





	you and i will walk together again

**Author's Note:**

> I really am sorry. Just... this is a fic where Trinket dies (loved, safe, and happy from old age, next to the person he loved most in the world) so... make a choice about if you want to continue. I love you guys. 
> 
> Title from We're Going to be Friends by the White Stripes

It ends on a cool spring morning. It ends at a bench in a familiar wood.

But it began 23 years prior when Vex'ahlia found herself surrounded by dead slavers and dead animals and a very scared bear cub.

"It's alright, buddy," she cooed as she untied it from a post hammered into the ground. She was so aware that the blood on her hands was that of this cub's mother. That she was a slaughterer, not a guardian.

"I promise the bad guys are gone. They're not gonna hurt us anymore." The baby crossed the few steps to her and put one little paw on her knee.

"You can go, little one, it's alright. We're free now." The bear nudged its nose under her hand. Impulsively, she gave him a scratch behind the ears.

He leaned up into her hand and made the little jump to sitting in her lap. He pushed his little nose into her stomach and made a soft noise she was sure wasn't what bears were meant to sound like. She cupped the cub's face in her hands, and when they locked eyes, she could have sworn that bear pleaded that she take him with her.

Worry roiled in her stomach, thick and angry like the blood she had spilled. Vax would not approve of her bringing a bear back to camp. But this little one had no one, they had no one. They were a perfect match. She let her hands fall to her knees and puffed out a heavy sigh.

The little bear rested his head in the crook of her elbow and closed his eyes. He trusted her.

"We'll be okay. We're together, we're going to be okay."

"Stubby. I know you aren't sleeping, stop it." Vex kept breathing slowly and quietly, really hoping her brother would piss off and leave her alone. It had been a long day of travel. He pressed up behind her and whispered in her ear.

"Pretending to sleep stopped working when we were, like, 11. This is insulting me, what you're doing right now." She adjusted her position slightly, tugging her blanket tighter around her shoulders and pressing closer to the warmth of her bear at her back

"You're a terrible shot and you can't track for shit." She knew the game he was playing, trying to piss her off. She wasn't going to fall for it. She was tired. It was cold. He was being a dick.

"Trinket," he stage-whispered, waking her bear. Trinket huffed out a long sigh.

“Buddy, I think your mother is dead." Trinket grumbled. He nudged his nose under her torso and pushed, shoving her over and out of her bedroll. She rolled a few feet, landing face down in some leaves. Trinket rolled her over again and started nosing at her chest like he was feeling for a heartbeat. She heard her brother chuckle.

"Don't use my own bear against me, you asshole," she muttered, finally turning to him. She clambered back into her blankets, away from the cold night air. Trinket huffed a sigh of relief and settled against them, one huge paw resting on her shoulder.

"He's a very good boy. Such a good boy." Vax reached up and scratched Trinket's belly. "Are you awake, Vex?"

“I am now.”

“Trinket, can I tell you something stupid?” She was laying against him as they rested. Everyone else was asleep, but they were outside of the Keep, under the twinkling stars of Emon. Trinket grunted in the way she knew (she didn’t know how she knew, she just did) meant ‘Yes’ or ‘Get on with it.’

“I think I’m falling in love with Percival,” she says softly like the wind might hear her and tell the world her secrets. Trinket wouldn’t, though. He was a very good bear.

“Isn’t that stupid? It felt ridiculous saying it. Since when have I fallen in love with someone? I love things, I love people, but I don’t know how I'm meant to love him-" Trinket grumbled and rolled over onto his side, trapping her underneath him. She let out an 'oof' as the wind was knocked out of her.

"Yep, I definitely deserved that. Fair, that's fair," she groaned. She reached her arms around him in a big hug. 

"Thanks for the reminder, darling. You always give the best advice." Trinket made his low grumbling sound that she could feel reverberate through her bones. She looked up past the big brown bear crushing her lungs and into the night sky. 

“It’s not the worst idea I've had though,” she mused. Trinket farted.

Vex was woken early in the morning by a large bear tongue licking the side of her face.

"Trinket, I'm trying to sleep," she whispered so as to not wake her still peacefully sleeping husband. Trinket turned around and nudged at her foot, their long agreed upon sign for 'We are going for a walk.' That was odd. 

He hardly ever wanted to go on hikes with her anymore. He was very much a house bear in his old age, playing with the children and napping in the sunlight. He used to wake her up for walks much more often when he was little. Well, little for a bear.

Vex begrudgingly pulled on her boots and slung her bow (not Fenthras, just one she'd commissioned from someone in town) and a quiver of arrows over her back. She looked down at Trinket, who had his head pillowed on his paws while she'd gotten ready.

"Well? Are we going?" she said to her bear. Trinket stood and lumbered out the door. They walked, Trinket leading, out of the castle and into the Parchwood, with no urgency. Their meandering path eventually led them to the bench Pike built for Vax, now weather-worn after a decade or so. Trinket sat down heavily at the foot of the bench and she sat next to him, leaning against his bulk.

They sat, the air still and cool. The trees were just barely starting to bud, and the snowdrops that grew in this part of the wood were beginning to poke through the earth. The sun was bright and warm, though, and Vex whispered a quiet thanks to her patron.

He started making noise after a while, those low sounds that Vex had never heard another bear make. He pawed at the bench and the dirt beneath it.

"Trinket? Darling, I don't understand." He grumbled beneath her, pressing his nose to her palm and then the bench. She shook her head and cast Speak With Animals. "Say that again, dear, I didn't catch it."

"I will move on soon," he said, in that slow, round voice of his. He put his head back down on his paw and looked up at her.

"What?"

"It is my time to go soon." She sat up and processed it for a second. The early morning walk, the bench, the insistence. He brought her here for a reason. 

"Soon?" she said, trying to keep her tone light despite the tears building in her throat. She turned to look at his face, to the greyed muzzle, the more clouded eyes.

"Soon," he said, "wanted to be alone with you. To tell just you." He curled up tighter until his snout was pressed against his Vex's thigh.

"Is there anything I can do?" She asked, useless magic sparking at her fingertips. Usually, her magic felt hot, like embers, but it didn't warm her hands.

"You have done everything for me," Trinket replied, "I just wanted to go kindly. To say goodbye." She nodded vigorously, and a single tear rolled down her cheek. Trinket pushed himself up to lick it away.

"Don't cry, Vex," he said, "I do not want you to cry." She sniffled for a second and wiped the tears from her eyes with the heel of her hand. 

"I won't then. I won't,” she promised. It might have been a lie, but it was the least she could do for her oldest, her truest friend. The one who had known her longer than anyone but her brother who was gone. She could feel her heart breaking, but she held back. He had asked her not to cry. 

“You don’t want to say goodbye to the cubs? Or Percy? Or the rest of Vox Machina?” Trinket shook his head and nudged up under her hand in the way that has always meant ‘I want scritches’ since that very first day. And every time she had, and she felt the overwhelming weight of the fact that this was the last time crushing her and it hurt. It hurt.

“You’re all I need,” he rumbled. She bit down hard on her lip and hugged him with her arms around his neck. She had fallen asleep with her hair loose and she was certain it was going to be full of leaves but she didn’t care. She just wanted to hug her companion. Her most loyal friend.

“Alright. Alright. Well, I want you to know that I wish we had more time, but I am so grateful for the time we had, okay? You're the best bear in the whole world and I love you always. I will miss you when you go. But I was so lucky to be yours for a while, buddy.” She ran her hands through his fur, trying to savor the feeling.

“Okay,” Trinket said, his eyes falling closed. He pushed his head against hers. “I’m tired, Vex. The walk was long.”

She forced a little smile onto her face, her lips pressed tightly together as if they were the dam holding back the rivers of tears. 

“You can sleep, Trinket. I’ll be okay. If you see your Uncle Vax, sit on him. And tell him we all miss him down here.” She held tighter.

“Okay,” he said again. His breaths were slow and even, but she could hear that they were labored, that he was fighting for them.

“It’s okay, you can go, dear. I’m gonna miss you so much. But I promise I’ll be safe and take care of my cubs and tell everyone I meet about my Trinket, the Wonder Bear. You can go, it's alright.” His forehead bumped into hers in something like a nod.

“I love you so much,” she blurted because she couldn’t bear her last words to him being anything but that. 

"Love," he said slowly. She smiled. His breaths came slower and slower and slower and stopped. She let a tear slip down her cheek. He didn’t see it. His keen ears didn’t hear it hit the forest floor. She pressed a kiss to his nose and she cried.

That's how it ends. Not in battle, not in pain, just together in a wood, just like it began.

**Author's Note:**

> inspired by my puppy Lucy. we deserved more time than we got.


End file.
